Mission report // M-07 · Climate tech
Verity East Africa Reforestation
A community-centred digital product suite supporting large-scale tree planting and transparent reforestation work in Kenya.
1. The TL;DR (Executive Summary)
The Purpose
Help communities take part in large-scale reforestation by connecting tree-planting initiatives with digital products for participation, field operations, and transparent project tracking. The work supports Verity Nature's wider mission to restore degraded landscapes with local communities.
The Problem
Reforestation at landscape scale depends on coordinated work on the ground. Community participation, activity in remote areas, and credible records of project progress all need to connect; isolated planting activity is difficult to coordinate and verify over time.
The Solution
A community planting app, admin dashboard, and executive reporting dashboard designed and developed as a connected suite to support tree registration, planting verification, mapping, field data capture, and community participation.
The Impact
A public Verity campaign page invites people to plant a tree with the organization, and the Kenya initiative is described in a video as aiming to plant 4 billion trees. That figure is an ambition, not a verified planting result; the public sources reviewed do not report a completed tree count or product adoption metrics.
2. Strategy & Discovery
Insight
Restoration is a long-running, place-based effort, not a one-off planting event. The product experience needed to connect people who want to contribute with the local teams delivering the work, while supporting credible monitoring beyond the initial action.
Stakeholders
The work brought together product and technology teams, Verity's East Africa operations, and local communities. Verity's public materials describe its projects as being designed and delivered in partnership with local people, with a Kenya office opened on April 10, 2024.
Supervisor (CTO)
Constraint
Field work takes place in remote environments, where reliable data capture and continuity matter. Verity describes developing ruggedised field systems, applications, and hardware to collect observations where connectivity and conventional office workflows cannot be assumed.
3. Execution (The “How”)
Key Decision
Treat reforestation as an end-to-end workflow rather than a standalone tree-planting counter: community participation and planting records connect to operational oversight and executive reporting.
My Role
I split my time evenly between Product Manager and Lead Product Designer, leading product definition and design across the connected suite. Verity's public-facing experience introduces the initiative as “Plant a Tree with Verity Nature”; its broader technology toolkit includes field applications and hardware, alongside Verity Carbon, its digital measurement, reporting, and verification platform.
Product Suite
- Community planting app: tree registration, planting verification, mapping, field data capture, and community participation.
- Admin dashboard: an operational view supporting administration of the planting program.
- Executive reporting dashboard: a reporting view for program progress and decision-making.
- Wider Verity technology context: Verity describes field applications and hardware for remote project work, and Verity Carbon for end-to-end measurement, reporting, and verification across nature-based carbon projects.
4. Outcome & Lessons
KPIs
The published campaign describes an ambition to plant 4 billion trees in Kenya. Planting totals, survival rates, participant numbers, and platform adoption figures are not available, so the ambition is not presented as a measured outcome.
Post-Launch
Verity's public materials emphasize local partnership, end-to-end project delivery, field-ready technology, and transparent monitoring. The Kenya office opening marked a step toward closer regional operations and collaboration.
Next Steps
Continue improving the community, field, and reporting workflows with feedback from local participants and operations teams. As verified project data becomes available, make planting, survival, and participation outcomes visible across operational and executive reporting.